


Phantom

by icaruslaughed



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Am I Capable Of Writing Something Happy?, Angst, But ClowningHours This Is Your Fault, Destiel Becoming Canon On 5 November 2020 (Supernatural), It's All Pain From Here On Out Buckaroos, M/M, Nightmares, Trauma, no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27852314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icaruslaughed/pseuds/icaruslaughed
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Phantom

There’s no such thing as good nights; Dean knew this. He had been forced to learn it just hours after his mother burned on the ceiling and he tried to sleep in the first of many cold, dingy hotel rooms. He also knew the average nights were ones that most sane people would consider horrible. Never ending nightmares. But even then, there was still much he didn’t know.

He learned. He learned as quickly as he had learned to relish the sound of a blade tearing into flesh. Hell was, well, hell, but so was what it left behind. He’d wake in a cold sweat from what felt like hours upon hours of memories of his greatest hits as the pit’s heir. As he caught his breath, told himself he was out, he was  _ out _ , damnit, and he had no reason to be such a little bitch about it, he thought he felt the ghost of an arm, of fingers dancing over the handprint on his shoulder, of wings brushing over his back. Then he’d fall back asleep and the brutal cycle would begin again. It was only the beginning.

Cas died, he walked right into that fucking lake, and Bobby was right: Dean  _ had _ lost the best friend he’d ever had. He wasn’t gone though. He still lived amongst screams and visions of his brother falling into the pit. He lived in the sight of his bloody, broken body sinking beneath the surface, in desperate, guilty words spoken over a ring of fire--

_ “What we don’t do, is we don’t go out and make another deal with the devil!” _

_ “It sounds so simple when you say it like that. Where were you when I needed to hear it?” _

_ “I was there. Where were you?” _

\--in the memory that Cas truly believed Dean didn’t love him. Not love, not respect, fear. He screamed to the figure draped in a stained trench coat that he  _ did, _ he  _ does, _ he  _ does _ love him, he always will even if it’s too late. He feels the ghost of his best friend’s arms squeezing him tight, as if it were the last thing either of them would ever get to do. It might as well have been. He wishes it were, if only so they wouldn’t have to go through what came next.

Cas told him to leave, to  _ Go! _ and he did. He couldn’t decide if it was worse, knowing Cas left him or letting himself think he failed his best friend. His dreams didn’t make him decide. He’d stand and watch as Cas got ripped apart by Leviathans and there was nothing he could do, because he wasn’t good enough. He’d wake and feel a twinge of...something over the handprint on his arm and he’d whisper to himself in the dark. “You don’t deserve it. You don't deserve him. God, Winchester: must you break everything you touch?”

Now . . . Now he sees the Shadow wrap half-corporeal tendrils of nothing around Cas as he utters the forbidden words: “I love you, too.” He sees the love of his life dragged away from him simply because he was dumb enough to love Dean, and Dean was weak enough to love him back. Dean loves him, and it got him killed. He still feels phantom blood seep through his clothes, over the handprint Cas left there all those years ago. The memory of wings and strong arms and righteous faith are long gone. Those are good things, and there was just one thing Cas was wrong about that night in the barn. Just the one.  _ Good things don’t happen, Dean. _


End file.
